Deadly Bronx train derailment is latest woe for Metro-North (videos)

Recent problems have drawn federal scrutiny

Dec. 1, 2013

Emergency workers at the scene of a commuter train wreck on Dec 1, 2013 in the Bronx borough of New York. The train bound for New York's Grand Central Station derailed in the Bronx Sunday with at least four people reported dead after several rail cars left the tracks near the Spuyten Duyvil railroad station. The southbound train was traveling from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central Terminal when the accident occurred. AFP PHOTO / TIMOTHY CLARY (Photo credit should read TIMOTHY CLARY/AFP/Getty Images) / AFP/Getty Images

Written by

and Theresa Juva

Metro-North has been plagued this year with accidents and mishaps that have killed five people, injured many more and exposed safety problems.

Sunday’s crash on the Hudson Line in the Bronx killed four people and injured 63. It is the first fatal derailment in the railroad’s 30-year history.

Metro-North notable incidents this year include:

• May 17: A collision of two M-8 trains in Bridgeport, Conn., less than eight months ago injured 76 people, including three crew members.

• May 28: a track foreman, Robert Luden, 52, was killed in West Haven, Conn., when a student rail controller mistakenly opened a work site to train traffic.

• July 18: Metro-North service on the Hudson Line was disrupted when 10 CSX freight train cars hauling garbage derailed in the Bronx. Service was suspended for three days.

• Sept. 25: Then the New Haven line was crippled when a Consolidated Edison feeder cable in Mount Vernon failed, knocking out power for 12 days to the line, which usually carries 132,000 commuters daily. Con Ed has acknowledged that its crew likely caused the problem by damaging the power line during an ongoing Metro-North project.

The number of train accident injuries is far higher this year than any year in the past decade, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. Through August, 123 workers or riders had been injured in Metro-North accidents so far this year.

The next highest number was just seven injuries in 2007.

The number of accidents, however, had declined from a peak of 40 in 2006 to just six in the first eight months of 2013.

The problems have drawn scrutiny from federal regulators.

In November, Metro-North chief engineer Robert Puciloski told members of the National Transportation Safety Board investigating the two Connecticut incidents that the railroad is “behind in several areas” of maintenance.

Among the lapses, Puciloski said, was a lag in the five-year schedule of cyclical maintenance, which had not been conducted in the area of the Bridgeport derailment since 2005.

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The NTSB issued an urgent recommendation to Metro-North that it use “redundant protection” such as “shunting,” a procedure in which crews attach a device to the rail in a work zone alerting the dispatcher to inform approaching trains to stop.

The railroad has taken several steps to improve safety, including hiring Transportation Technology Center Inc. to inspect all 750 miles of track using infrared and ground penetrating radar. When the work was completed in October, 30 locations that needed work were fixed immediately, railroad spokesman Marjorie Anders has said.

The railroad had been carrying out improvements to track in the Bronx, including improving drainage over a 6-mile stretch used by the New Haven and Harlem lines.

In announcing new worker safety programs last summer, Metro-North president Howard Permut said that “the No. 1 priority Metro-North has is safe operations for its customers and employees. We will make the railroad as absolutely safe as we can.”

Aside from the accidents, customers have been growing impatient with the railroad’s traditionally sound on-time record.

In an annual passenger survey conducted in June, 86 percent of respondents said they were happy with the railroad’s on-time performance, down five percentage points from last year.